Black Country, New Road on ‘playing the game’ and why you won’t see them eating lunch on TikTok

Just as Black Country, New Road released their second album, 2022’s Ants From Up There, they announced that singer and guitarist Isaac Wood was leaving the band, shrinking their number from seven to six. Wood was open about the reasons for leaving, notably how a “sad and afraid feeling” was making it impossible for him to perform. The parting was amicable but left the rest of the band in a quandary, forcing them to cancel all live dates except a single show at London’s Roundhouse. They issued the stopgap Live At Bush Hall album in 2023 as they recalibrated and worked on reinventing what they could sound like. 

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“It wouldn’t have felt appropriate to get someone else to sing Isaac’s parts,” says Georgia Ellery, violin and vocals in the band as well as being a member of electro-pop duo Jockstrap, of the pressing need to write new songs for the reshaped band. “We didn’t have a lot of time to mull things over. It was an intense creative period.”

The luxury of being a large band is that, when the singer leaves, several other members can split the role. Musically, the band shifted from art rock squalling and atypical post-rock song structures into something more genteel on upcoming third album, Forever Howlong. The jazz/soul of Laura Nyro, the folk-rock leanings of Fairport Convention, the tranquil folk of Vashti Bunyan, the interweaving vocal harmonies of The Roches, the baroque stylings of both The Zombies’ Odessey & Oracle (1968) and John Cale’s Paris 1919 (1973) all get slotted into the band’s new musical topography. Lead singles “Besties”, with harpsichord and trilling vocals, and the escalating and intense “Happy Birthday” give clear notice that this is now a different band.

“It’s difficult to track the trajectory accurately because it was a slow set of circumstances,” explains guitarist Luke Mark. “The place we ended up in was dictated by the instruments we all play.” A broken violin, for example, saw Ellery switch to mandolin and this all sculpted the new sound. 

Their lyrics can be bleakly disquieting but are folded into often peppy songs, creating a musical and emotional chiaroscuro. 

“I like the idea of contrasting the emotions of the lyrics with how upbeat and uplifting it feels,” says Ellery. 

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Six members is slightly more economically viable than seven (Black Country, New Road split all songwriting royalties equally), but in the hardscrabble economics for acts in 2025, where touring margins are gossamer-thin and only the top 0.5% of acts make swimming pool-buying fortunes from streaming, things are always precarious. 

“We’re very lucky, because we got to the point that we can live off this,” says Ellery, who studied at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. “But it’s still difficult, worrying about getting enough gigs to sustain that situation.”

Mark adds: “We got lucky when we built our fanbase. It was just before it became borderline impossible to tour outside of the UK specifically. If we were starting out again now, it’d be much more difficult. It is sustainable for us if we consistently tour – but our touring has been pretty low-budget, with pretty low quality gear that we’re taking with us.”

Life on the road is demanding, with the pressures of performing and a creeping boredom with playing the same songs over and over again. The band supported Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds on their UK and Paris arena dates last November. I tell them that Cave’s management had reportedly paid for a therapist to join the tour as a safety net in case it became overwhelming for anyone in Cave’s band or crew. 

“That’s an expensive reassurance, isn’t it?” says Mark. “I’ve heard of other bands doing that, like Metallica having a group therapist on tour.” 

Black Country, New Road have their own internal veto system to deal with the rolling tensions of being in a band. “We look out for each other,” says Ellery. “We make it a priority to check in and have an open conversation.”

Touring is an inherently unnatural environment, long days yawning out in grey boredom, barring those fizzing 90 minutes on stage, cooped up with a small number of people for intense weeks or months. It can be a tinderbox for emotions. “We’re well versed in all of these issues,” insists Mark. “It’s like living in a commune.”

Exacerbating the perilous reality for acts today is the fact they have to do far more than write and perform. In an age where algorithms coldly dictate the parameters of your reach, there has to be some kowtowing to social media. 

“I’m a walking TikTok trend / But the colour runs out in the end,” is how Besties ends, casting a withering eye over this part of a modern musician’s existence. Mark sighs at the need to chase social hits with belittling “content” creation. “Like TikToks of us having lunch,” he puffs. “Bollocks like that.”

With an arched eyebrow, Ellery says, “We have to get into the algorithms. [Although] it needs to feel in line with who we are. But, yeah, we do play the game. We play the game hard!” 

When drummer Bill Berry left REM in 1997, singer Michael Stipe pronounced, “A three-legged dog is still a dog. It just has to learn to run differently.” A key member leaving will shift the geometry and the molecules of an act, but is not always the start of a slide into irrelevance. Fleetwood Mac, Genesis, Pink Floyd and Iron Maiden all became monstrously bigger following their cabinet reshuffles, while the death of Bon Scott did not stop the Brian Johnson-fronted AC/DC becoming the biggest hard rock band in the world.

There is palpable anticipation for Black Country, New Road’s new shape and new album. The music may appear more approachable on the surface, but there are still plenty of musical oddities and curious melodic curves to hold the interest, drawing from often archaic music to direct their new future. It’s only baroque’n’roll but they like it. 

Forever Howlongby Black Country, New Road is out now.

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